–Manufacturing Downside:Felix Salmon looks at the downside of manufacturing returning to the U.S. ” All of which means that there are two enormous problems with the story that manufacturing is returning to the US. That might be true, but (a) it’s not creating many jobs, and (b) the jobs it is creating are not the good jobs which people want to have for many years. Instead, they pay $15ish per hour, which is what teenage babysitters make in New York. Once upon a time, in the halcyon 1950s and 1960s, a man could have a blue-collar factory job and make enough money to support a whole family. Those days are over now, but they echo still in the dreams of manufacturing returning to the U.S. The idea is that were that to happen, good jobs would magically be created. Where the reality is that manufacturing jobs are not good jobs any more: you’re better off working in retail, whether you’re in the US or in China. And you don’t need to spend unpaid years in college learning technical skills to get a retail job.”

–QE Unintended Consequences:Greg Ip looks at the unintended consequences of monetary policy. ” QE can reduce bond yields two ways. First, it can signal that the Fed is serious about keeping short-term rates lower for longer. In our above example, investors may expect T-bills to yield 2% next year, instead of 4%. This should lower bond yields. Second, by reducing the supply of long-term bonds, it can force investors who want long-duration assets to accept a lower return on the smaller supply of those still available. This reduces the term premium. Investors have indeed moved out the date at which they expect the Fed to tighten, but that’s mostly because the Fed says it won’t raise rates until 2015 at the earliest. QE’s much more noticeable effect has been on the term premium, which Fed staff reckon has fallen to minus 80 basis points, near an all-time low. Until I read Mr Stein’s speech, I didn’t think any of this mattered much. Whether yields were low because of sanguine expectations of Fed tightening or because of a negative term premium, the impact on borrowing and consumption was the same. And indeed, the Fed’s own macroeconomic model, FRB/US, makes the same assumption. Mr Stein demolishes that illusion.”

–Copyrights:Virginia Postrel presents a free-market fix for copyright the system. ” Even as digital technology has made reproducing, remixing and repurposing creative works easier — with potentially enormous benefits for consumers and producers of new works — the monopoly privileges of copyright have expanded. The result is a bizarre combination of rampant copyright violations, frequent encroachment on legitimate fair use, suppression of new technologies and business models, and the ever-present threat of draconian penalties.”

–Chart Advent Calendar: The Economist’s terrific Graphic detail blog is putting together an advent calendar made up of its best Daily charts.

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